A mounting list of robot-related accidents has experts questioning whether the devices will be prone to more dangerous malfunctions or even programmed attacks.Notable mishaps that have been documented include a robotic security guard knocking over a child at a California shopping mall, a demonstration robot smashing a window at a Chinese conference—it caused a bystander to get injured, and 144 deaths in the United States caused by robotic surgery. All this according to security firm IOActive.+ Also on Network World: How secure are home robots? +
These incidents “clearly demonstrate the serious potential consequences of robot malfunctions,” the consultancy says in a white paper it recently published about existing robot security (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The purpose of indoor Wi-Fi is no longer simply about providing internet connectivity. Indoor positioning services that enable asset tracking and visitor navigation functions are adding to the traditional access point feature set of spotty internet access.GPS positioning doesn’t work as well indoors as out. And Wi-Fi equipment vendors are keen to point out that networks created with their equipment are better suited to indoor locationing—better than cellular, too, with its usually outdoor masts.This has led to the newest Wi-Fi system: meter-level positioning.9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi
The latest nod comes from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the certifier and association of Wi-Fi technology companies. It just launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The purpose of indoor Wi-Fi is no longer simply about providing internet connectivity. Indoor positioning services that enable asset tracking and visitor navigation functions are adding to the traditional access point feature set of spotty internet access.GPS positioning doesn’t work as well indoors as out. And Wi-Fi equipment vendors are keen to point out that networks created with their equipment are better suited to indoor locationing—better than cellular, too, with its usually outdoor masts.This has led to the newest Wi-Fi system: meter-level positioning.9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi
The latest nod comes from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the certifier and association of Wi-Fi technology companies. It just launched a certified program for “meter-level accuracy for indoor device location data” using its technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Eliminating a “tangled Christmas tree lights” wiring scenario in data centers is imperative and can be achieved with infrared, reckons an academic network engineering team.Infrared lasers should be installed on the top of data center racks and be used to transmit information. It would be far superior and cheaper than fiber optic, and it would be better than attempted, but lacking, radio signaling.Radio doesn’t work, says Mohsen Kavehrad, the W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State and one of the developers, in an article on the school’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Eliminating a “tangled Christmas tree lights” wiring scenario in data centers is imperative and can be achieved with infrared, reckons an academic network engineering team.Infrared lasers should be installed on the top of data center racks and be used to transmit information. It would be far superior and cheaper than fiber optic, and it would be better than attempted, but lacking, radio signaling.Radio doesn’t work, says Mohsen Kavehrad, the W. L. Weiss Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State and one of the developers, in an article on the school’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The smartphone in its current guise has been around for 10 years, and in that time it hasn’t changed form-factor much—a somewhat boring rectangular slab of plastic. Big deal.Ten years, however, are eons in tech life. Therefore one could ask just why haven’t smartphones morphed their shape in this decade of otherwise spectacular technological advancement? Have we really reached the pinnacle of communications tool design? More likely, a technical limitation.Samsung, though, is reportedly aiming to launch flexible devices soon, according to the Korea Herald. One of them is a “bendable Virtual Reality device with a flexible OLED display that can be bent to cover a user’s eyes completely,” for example, it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Groundbreaking peak download speeds of 930 Mbps were obtained last week at the operational launch of Telstra’s Gigabit LTE network. Peak upload speeds of 127 Mbps were obtained at the same event.The ultra-fast service has now rolled out in major Australian Central Business Districts (CBDs), Qualcomm says in a blog post. That includes the CBDs of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, according to Android Central.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Groundbreaking peak download speeds of 930 Mbps were obtained last week at the operational launch of Telstra’s Gigabit LTE network. Peak upload speeds of 127 Mbps were obtained at the same event.The ultra-fast service has now rolled out in major Australian Central Business Districts (CBDs), Qualcomm says in a blog post. That includes the CBDs of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, according to Android Central.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Artificial intelligence (AI) is so last year, according to some experts.Scientists at MIT this week claimed a breakthrough in how human intuition can be added to algorithms. And in a separate, unrelated report, Deloitte Consulting is chastising the business community for not comprehending fully that new, cognitive computing technology should be exploited.“Artificial intelligence is only the beginning,” researchers write in a Deloitte University Press article about Deloitte's February study.+ Also on Network World: Using artificial intelligence to teach computers to see +
“Advanced cognitive analytics” is just one of the “fast-evolving” technologies businesses need to get a handle on, they say. A kind of artificial intuition and cognition through algorithms is one part of that machine intelligence (MI). Notably, it’s not AI. MI is more cognitive and mimics humans, the firm explains, while AI is simply a subset of MI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Artificial intelligence (AI) is so last year, according to some experts.Scientists at MIT this week claimed a breakthrough in how human intuition can be added to algorithms. And in a separate, unrelated report, Deloitte Consulting is chastising the business community for not comprehending fully that new, cognitive computing technology should be exploited.“Artificial intelligence is only the beginning,” researchers write in a Deloitte University Press article about Deloitte's February study.+ Also on Network World: Using artificial intelligence to teach computers to see +
“Advanced cognitive analytics” is just one of the “fast-evolving” technologies businesses need to get a handle on, they say. A kind of artificial intuition and cognition through algorithms is one part of that machine intelligence (MI). Notably, it’s not AI. MI is more cognitive and mimics humans, the firm explains, while AI is simply a subset of MI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There's a fabulous story about a slew of Amazon Echo devices that took it upon themselves to order expensive doll houses from the ecommerce retailer all because a news show host uttered the phrase “Alexa ordered me a dollhouse” on air. The machines heard it from the TV switched on in the room.Researchers say it’s not an unlikely scenario. They say not only can attackers issue mal-audio voice commands to any AI listening device that is in audible range, but they can also do it using hidden voice commands. Those are commands that might not even be noticed by the user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wi-Fi as a cloud-based subscription service is making moves to grab enterprise networking. The premise is that Wi-Fi is now so crucial to business and employees that companies have to ensure quality of service—even if that means bypassing the traditional networking and IT folks already on payroll and running networks.“A growing number of companies are deciding that Wi-Fi is too important not to be handled by experts, and for that reason they are outsourcing it,” said RCR Wireless News, which has been writing about managed service provider (MSP) vendor KodaCloud. KodaCloud published a press release this week saying major staffing firm EmployBridge had just bought its subscription Wi-Fi service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cellular, short range Wi-Fi (good for WAN gateways) and Bluetooth (good for wearables) aren’t the only wireless technologies IoT development has available. Some newer networks are being developed specifically for the Internet of Things.Here’s what you need to know.Ultra-narrowband Sigfox, beginning its roll-out in the U.S., says its low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) has the lowest subscription costs (digging at expensive LTE) and that its communications proffer “radically lower energy consumption.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Brand-new research from a consultant and a trade body released last week estimates the deployment of 5G networks could create up to 3 million jobs. Accenture, along with CTIA, also predict the new radio networking technology will add $500 billion to the American GDP.That's good news. However, questions about 5G remain. And they’re unrelated to the actual physics of the technology—which doesn’t really exist yet. The questions include an important matter: What’s going to drive these kinds of high-flown claims, and why is 5G being trumpeted as special? Is it really such a quantum leap over existing networks?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Brand-new research from a consultant and a trade body released last week estimates the deployment of 5G networks could create up to 3 million jobs. Accenture, along with CTIA, also predict the new radio networking technology will add $500 billion to the American GDP.That's good news. However, questions about 5G remain. And they’re unrelated to the actual physics of the technology—which doesn’t really exist yet. The questions include an important matter: What’s going to drive these kinds of high-flown claims, and why is 5G being trumpeted as special? Is it really such a quantum leap over existing networks?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve owned or driven five BMWs in my lifetime. The sixth one drove me.BMW kindly gave me the opportunity to pilot one of its prototype self-driving cars last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. And the experience wasn’t one of dawdling around a parking lot, cleverly avoiding a few traffic cones.Driving 60 mph, I commanded a powerful 5 Series, modified, but generally a production-level sedan. I allowed it to drive me for 11 miles along a congested, rush-hour interstate through the center of glittering sin city.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Computers fully comprehending things they see in front of them will be the technical advance that takes us to the next level in our digitized world, experts say.“The next leap in computing will be in how we interpret images,” said Jem Davies, an ARM executive at an embedded technology conference recently. “That will be revolutionary,” he said, according to IEEE Spectrum, writing about the processor executive’s talk in the article “Bringing Eyes to the Internet of Things.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sending Internet of Things, or IoT messages using liquids, such as vodka or glass cleaner, could replace light as the next go-to network carrier for the Internet.Pulses of liquid chemicals, replicating the ones-and-zeros of traditional electron-based data streams are better than copper wires, wireless or fiber because they’re cheaper, and aren’t susceptible to the same kind of interference, claim the inventors from Stanford University. Wireless signals, for example, can run into problems among large masses of metals.Vodka was the liquid of choice for the first of the pH-based messaging tests run by the school, but amusingly failed due to the receiving computer getting “too saturated with vodka to receive more messages,” according to fellow Nariman Farsad, who has been working on the concept.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Harvesting electromagnetic energy from thin air to develop self-sustaining Internet of Things (IoT) communications may become reality thanks to a new technology called HitchHike. The goal is to reduce the need for continual maintenance of the expected billions of IoT installations. Researchers say they’re close to the finish line. Worst case scenario, they say they’ll be able to get Wi-Fi chips to run for 10 years on the same, small battery.“HitchHike is the first self-sufficient Wi-Fi system that enables data transmission using just micro-watts of energy, almost zero,” claims Pengyu Zhang, a Stanford researcher, in a recent press release from the school.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two real-life, practical, semi-autonomous vehicle launches next year are an indication that the self-driving car is really happening.Audi is expected to make its up-to-35-mph hands-free driving system available late next year in some 2018 vehicles.And Volvo will start testing Drive Me, an autopilot that will introduce 100 Swedish XC90 owners to autonomous driving, according to an Automotive News supplement produced for the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Patrick Nelson